Well, hello there and hope you don't mind my rambling for a minute or two.

I'm new to LaserDiscs in that I've only recently begun building my own collection. I've always been aware of them, though. (I can still recall having my dad dub me VHS copies of his Raging Bull and Goodfellas LDs when I was still in high school.)

Vinyl and VHS, in particular, are responsible for my full-on conversion to the LaserDisc faith. I've long noted the "warmer," more organic qualities of my cherished '70s-'80s pressings of vintage jazz or metal or dub reggae. I recently unearthed and catalogued boxes of old VHS cassettes that my mother held onto. In the process, I re-acquainted myself with the first VHS cassette my family ever owned: a 1985-or-thereabouts early release of Prince's Purple Rain. Yep. in pure analog.

Since then, I've developed an amateur historian's appreciation for even the fuzziest pan-and-scan VHS transfers as an indelible, historically significant part of how generations of people (including my own) actually consumed and processed movies. And I've gradually become aware of just how much digital tweaking of original video and audio elements goes into transferring film history to the realm of Blu-ray and 4K.

So my latest passion is true analog as it relates to film history. Laser rot be damned, I'm into chasing down as many of those early, pre-digital LD transfers of films as possible. (Yes, gimme that MCA DiscoVision.) Not to mention, there's still reams of LaserDisc releases that have yet to see the light of day on DVD, Blu-ray or 4K. I want those, too.

Oh, and as far as the title of my post is concerned:

Favorite director: Sam Peckinpah

Favorite film: Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia -- I've seen it twice in 35mm, I own it on VHS/DVD/Blu-ray, and I'm currently awaiting a mint-condition, still-sealed copy of the '96 U.S. LD that I just ordered on eBay.

Favorite film genres: film noir, blaxploitation, and all the glorious weirdness and transgressive, BDSM-oriented kink of Japanese sexploitation -- most especially, the softcore Roman p0rn0 series released by the Nikkatsu studio from 1971 to 1988.

You're like a version of me. I like how you advocate for analogue. Your arguments might be harder to attack for people here than my arguments on the subject are. But whatever, we both know we love that softer more natural and human sound and vision. Speaking of Nikkatsu, just watched Shinji Shomai's Love Hotel for the first time a couple nights ago. It's perfect Tokyo to me. After seeing Sailor Suit and Machinegun and Typhoon Club recently too, Shomai might be up there with my top directors now too. Always have loved Pekinpah and his persona and his movies too. My current top directors are Pekinpah, Kubrick, Kitano, Kurosawa, Firstenberg, Godfrey Ho, Sho Kosugi and Ringo Lam. For animation, Ichiro Itano.

Hey spooky you are only allowed to have one account around here!

But jokes aside:
Welcome to the madness samonpinku!

Cheers,
Markus

God, Love Hotel is great. Just on atmosphere alone. I've currently got the UK Third Window Blu-ray of it on pre-order but I first saw it via trusty download maybe last year or so. It immediately shot to the list of what I'd consider to be crucial Nikkatsu Roman Pornos.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is great as well. First saw it via bootleg, then picked up the Arrow Blu-ray of it late last year.

My birthday's at the end of July. Which means my usual: going through Peckinpah's entire filmography -- from his debut, The Deadly Companions (1961), all the way through to his swan song, the stil-underrated Osterman Weekend (1983). Except now, some of these rewatches will thankfully be on LD. (Although I must say I am looking forward to the upcoming 4K Criterion release of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.) Peckinpah's been the guy I've yammered on about to my fellow film buffs since I was about 20 and my initial VHS viewings of The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs left me scratching my head as to why I wasn't hearing about more about this guy in the official, media-approved discussions of Greatest Film Directors.

By the way, how did you get into the Nikkatsu stuff? For me, it was a chance encounter years ago with the theatrical trailer for what I now consider to be the quintessential Nikkatsu Roman p0rn0: 1978's Rope Cosmetology, starring '70s Japanese cinema's undisputed bondage queen, Naomi Tani.

I can't recall where or how I stumbled across this trailer. Outside of some of the weirdo Japanese stuff I'd already been exposed to, I had no context for anything that I saw in this trailer. But I downloaded it and I still have that original file to this day. And what I saw in that trailer likely led to a seismic shift in how I viewed "acceptable" cinematic content.

What caught me off guard was that this trailer was for something intensely cinematic, above all else. This was no grimy underground fetish film, no -- this was captured in full, glorious CinemaScope ratio and it utilized genuine dramatic acting in service of something that the gatekeepers of film culture would have generally relegated to the margins of serious film discussion.

Speaking of Roman p0rn0 in glorious analog, there's a series of these '70s-'80s Nikkatsu films that Impulse Films has released here in the States under their "Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection" banner:





Mostly on DVD, although a select handful have been granted HD masters for Blu-ray. But many of the DVD titles sport obvious VHS-era masters that Nikkatsu clearly saw fit to license out to the West as opposed to digitally cleaning them up. And even those outdated VHS masters slapped onto little silver discs have a strangely satisfying retro appeal befitting the midnight-movie nature of most of these titles.

Speaking of notable Roman p0rn0 directors, I'd have to list Kichitarô Negishi as one of my faves. He seems barely known outside of Japan; even within Japan, he seems more what you'd call a "director's dirctor." Championed by film buffs and noted by few others. But his Nikkatsu work is clearly the work of a director with concerns beyond the bedroom. In particular, I can't seem to shake his 1981 Crazed Fruit, an unassuming little neo-noir set in Tokyo's rainy alleys and hooker bars. It concerns a working-stiff kid who moves to the big city only to get caught up in the web spun by a bored little rich girl -- a rich girl who's scheming to extricate herself from a sordid relationship with her stepdaddy.

The film has echoes (to me, at least) of everything from the earlier, more psychologically intense pink films of the 1960s to Scorsese's Mean Streets and even James Toback's Fingers. And yet, it doesn't skimp at all on the trangressive elements that make Japanese exploitation what it is...



Thank you!

So there’s another fool who’s into old J p0rn and thinks the best way to represent 35mm is whatever the lowest quality medium is because that’s all they had when they were kids and it’s supposedly NOT the one weirdo with endless multiple accounts saying the same thing?

It stretches the limits of believability. I’m not yet sold. The Forper may be capable of disguise, but he cannot change his message. If this is him he will out himself more and more with every post.

Well, that's quite the welcome. Nice to meet you too, bro!


I hear ya. I mean, people are actually discussing what they enjoy about laserdiscs? What do they think this is, a forum devoted to discussing laserdiscs or something?

There’s loving laserdiscs and then there’s devoting ones life to being a living controversy by waving all kinds of dumb flags all day and night. We’re used to a bit of both around here. That’s why your identical twin, Forper, has been banned so many times. He will reply to his own posts as a previous banned account so him doing that in more real-time, maintaining multiple accounts so he’d be able to agree with someone, would be %0 surprising. I’d be much more surprised if you weren’t him. This would fit perfectly in his rut.

So where in the US do you live? We know it’s the US and absolutely not Australia so how’s the summer treating you?

What is this forum becoming?

Lasertag. In a bad way.

Now you guyss know it's not me, he collects poo rays.



Yep, he's a pillar of '70s American movies, absolutely essential. I think what got me onto him was reading about his lifestyle a decade or so back. I only knew Convoy then. I got a nice DVD boxset of Ride the High Country/The Wild Bunch/Pat Garret/Cable Hogue and never looked back, been collecting all his movies since then. Osterman is one of the best imo, but how does that skinny old English dude get so much p***y?



When I was into anime, following Japanese girls in the street and whatever asian flicks I could watch in the '90s, I got a few issues of Asian Cult Cinema at comic books shops. They educated me on Tani and Nikkatsu but I had no way of accessing the films then. At that time I got to see some more mainstream Japanese stuff subtitled on our public funded TV station for migrants, SBS. Like Juzo Itami and Takeshi Kitano kinda stuff.



See! look over here Admin, it's not me. This guy is way too smart and knowledgeable than I'll ever be!! Witness it! This is NOT me.!

Uh... yeah.

Or maybe... just maybe...

...some of us are simply here to discuss our hobbies with likeminded people, and don't actually give a flying f**k about a bunch of retarded internet drama that has nothing to do with them, and that only people with way, way too much time on their hands ever seems to care about.

You think?

Assuming you aren't forper (whom "spooky" is beyond any reasonable doubt), I hope you can pardon anyone who might point out the eye-catching coincidence of a new member popping up with very similar opinions to forper and with forper replying within minutes via one of his ban-evading alt accounts to bond over your shared tastes in pornography in public. Call it unfortunate timing.

The thing about Forper is that he doesn’t seem to know how weird he is. He thinks his way of looking at the world is totally sane. So after he gets banned he starts a new account trying to fool us into thinking that he is somehow, on a forum with like two dozen members, *another* Blu-ray hating, J p0rn loving, self-hating Australian who loves America and hates his parents and wishes GI Joe was real so we ID him within seconds and the cycle begins again.

So this guy is somehow NOT the 30th fake Forper? It’s not impossible but it’s really unlikely. It would be like us having two Olympic athletes or two senior fellows of the Heritage Foundation or two people from Egypt. If he’s real we’ll understand eventually. It’s too unlikely to believe at first. The “swagger” is identical.

At least this topic isn't about how to repair my LD player and flip it on ebay. But wait what do you all think its worth before I list???????

I don‘t know, but do you want to know anything about my last holiday?


It seems to be pretty exhausting for „my friend“ to keep to the subject or to edit his posts…

Yeah. It's almost as though the entire thread had been hijacked by self-appointed forum police yammering on about their weird and borderline autistic personal obsessions with people's real identities.

Almost.

Hey at least there is something for everyone:
GTA players, hobby investigators, beeing narcisstic and even acting schizophrenic!

I am having a blast!

If you’re not Forper, search for his posts. If you’re sane you’ll be forced to admit the confusion is forgivable, if not guaranteed.

When you take yourself to the grocery store or a baseball game, how many people there do you think are into vintage Asian PRON, banned cowboy movies and love VHS? Out of like 35,000 people in a sports stadium do you think there is anyone like that but you? There isn’t. I’ll just tell you that now.

Now, that same comparison but in a room with 23 people? No reasonable person would consider those odds likely.

Forper would though. He would actually try to argue the feasibility of that. He would double down every time and never give an inch on any argument. He would say, “Dude, people introduce themselves as p0rn lovers and Blu-ray haters in their first forum post all the time.” but really that’s pretty rare as a greeting.

Where in the US do you live?

Perhaps not at a sports stadium or the neighborhood supermarket, no. That wouldn't exactly be the place one would go to find fellow film buffs, now would it?

I'm guessing you're just not hanging out in the right crowds. Or maybe you've never left the fly-overs. In fact, at this point, you don't even seem to be a guy who's ever left the house much.

Are you suggesting in all seriousness that, among film buffs, or in places like L.A., NYC, Chicago or anywhere where there's a serious film and arts culture, you'd be hard pressed to find another single human being who happens to enjoy collecting VHS tapes, who enjoys the work of Sam Peckinpah (not exactly an unknown director there), or who enjoys Japanese exploitation films?

Nah, actually, you're right. You are. And it's time for me to own up to it!

All those other people in packed theaters when I attended screenings of Peckinpah films at the New Beverly in L.A., the Siskel Center in Chicago, or at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX?

Mere figments of my imagination! They didn't actually exist.

All the people I've connected with on film forums and from film-buff social circles who have laughed with me over the fetishistic peculiarities of Japanese exploitation films and lamented with me that so few of them are granted official releases in the West?

I confess: I was just tripping on acid all those times! Pure hallucinations, every last one of 'em. LOL!

Those exploitation-genre fans I grew up around? You know, my buddies and my buddies' older brothers? Guys who introduced me to people like Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento, and who provided me with my first exposure to Nikkatsu Roman p0rn0 via a bootleg VHS import of the 1986 schlock masterpiece Entrails of a Virgin?

You guessed it! I was just hallucinating all those guys, too.

In fact, my confession doesn't stop there. You see, the truth is... we're all just Forper sock accounts! We are! You found us out!

Film critic Jasper Sharp, whose book Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema I consider to be the bible of Japanese pink cinema? Writer and Japanese-culture enthusiast Donald Richie, who was among the first in the West to lend any sort of wider context to Japanese "eroductions" (as they were once called)? They're both just Forper's sock accounts. You guessed it!

And Forper's villainy doesn't stop there! Check this out:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=271457

It's a forum over on Blu-ray.com with various people discussing an entire line of Nikkatsu Roman Pornos being released on Blu-ray and DVD. But you already know the truth there, dontcha?

They're all just Forper's sock accounts! Yep. 7 whole pages of one guy's sock accounts pretending to be various individuals who actually enjoy naked Asian women. (Imagine that!)

You found us out, Detective. And you know what? I'm glad to finally have all that off my chest. Thank you!